Just when you thought they wouldn’t do it again, The Flaming Lips have done it again. According to Pitchfork (the popular hipster kid), FACT (the acid-dropping hottie), The Quietus (the cute intellectual exchange student), NME (the old-looking freshman), Spinner (the trust-fund student), Consequence of Sound (the band nerd), BrooklynVegan (the sack-lunch kid), SPIN (the quarterback with refined taste), Stereogum (the preppy kid), Exclaim (the Canadian), and The A.V. Club (the funny dropout), Tiny Mix Tapes (the androgynous outcast masturbating in the corner with a noose around its neck and a bag over its head) has learned that The Flaming Lips have finally recorded a “proper” follow-up to 2009’s Embryonic (TMT Review).
The nine-track album, produced once again by Dave Fridmann, is called The Terror, and Wayne Coyne had some stuff to say about it (of course): “Why would we make this music that is The Terror — this bleak, disturbing record…?? I don’t really want to know the answer that I think is coming: that WE were hopeless, WE were disturbed and, I think, accepting that some things are hopeless… or letting hope in one area die so that hope can start to live in another?? Maybe this is the beginning of the answer.”
More details about the album were announced last year. From an interview with Rolling Stone (the guy who still buys CDs):
During its initial creation, longtime bandmember and multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd was in the throes of a drug addiction.
“It was probably the worst time of his life,” Coyne says. “I knew he was really, really struggling. He was in a bad way.” During this time, Drozd would seclude himself in a separate studio from his bandmates. Paying frequent visits to Drozd’s hideaway, Coyne would discover his friend having penned some “horribly creepy” but exquisite songs. The singer recalls a particularly disturbing tune that Drozd wrote reflecting his inner battle.
“He did this one piece of music and did lyrics, all these things,” Coyne explains. “Not all the pieces were audible, but he had these things saying ‘you are alone,’ and then the other voice saying, ‘I am not alone.’ Back and forth between some horrible internal dialogue. It was truly devastating.”
The Terror is due April 1 on Bella Union and April 2 on Warner Bros, preceded by a non-album, digital-only bonus track for “Sun Blows Up Today” on February 3. The track can also be heard on the same day in a commercial during the Super Bowl. And don’t forget that The Flaming Lips have dates with The Black Keys and a vinyl reissue of Zaireeka coming up too!
The Terror tracklist:
01. Look…The Sun Is Rising
02. Be Free, A Way
03. Try To Explain
04. You Lust
05. The Terror
06. You Are Alone
07. Butterfly, How Long It Takes To Die
08. Turning Violent
09. Always There…In Our Hearts
• The Flaming Lips: http://www.flaminglips.com
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